Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Type four win-win trading

by Robert Waldmann Brad DeLong clears his throat. I throw a cow. He wrote: The win-win benefits of trading money for money–where are they? It turns out that they are there. There are, actually, four: 1. Trading money now for money later: people who want to save now and spend later can make win-win trades […]

Greece – GIIPS – Eurozone – Big Problem

O.K., Greece is now “high yield”, “junk”, “below investment grade”, at least according to S&P. What I mean by that is S&P now rates Greece’s foreign and local currency sovereign debt at the BB+ level (with a negative outlook), below the sometimes-coveted investment grade status, BBB- is the minimum. Why did S&P feel the need […]

What to do about CDO ratings II

Robert Waldmann An earlier post on this topic seems to have been eaten by blogger (update it’s back). This post is roughly half roughly retyping. I have two proposals (last time I only had one). One is to give up on the ratings agencies. They were geese that laid golden eggs providing an immensely valuable […]

The NY Times Jumps the Shark — Again

UPDATE: Tristero piles on the details that I assumed. And Bloix in comments there makes it clear that the diagram which has the Generals’s panties in twists is relatively straightforward compared to a car’s electrical system (as anyone who has used Erwin or Visio or even Powerpoint to build data flow diagrams can tell you). […]

Ross Douthat and the cocoon

Robert Waldmann Douthat is worried about the Republican information cocoon. He thinks that conservatives should not rely so much on Fox News and should be open to media which they consider unfriendly (such as his employer the New York Times). He argues that Republicans achieved more back before FoxIn the age Before Fox News, on […]

Deficit Commission, CBO Scoring and the "Leninist Strategy" for Social Security Reform

by Bruce Webb I have had occasion before to mention the “Leninist Strategy” for Social Security put forth in 1983 and followed by Social Security ‘reformers’ ever since. The strategy has three main pillars: One: reassure current retirees that their benefits won’t be cutTwo: convince younger workers that left unreformed Social Security just won’t be […]

Thoughts on EM conference in NY

Yesterday I attended the 6th Annual Goldman Sachs Emerging Markets conference in New York. My takeaway from the conference overall was that the risk-on sentiment that is driving massive inflows into EM funds is still very much present. Going forward, the conference participants generally see emerging markets as “different” from those ten years ago, and […]